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Thursday, 24 September 2009

Tom Rees and Gregory Paul have shown that unequal societies have greater religious observance and more social problems than more equal ones. Paul has shown this for developed countries and Rees for a wider sample.

The correlations are far too strong for this to be coincidence – some causal mechanism must be operating – but neither author has been able to identify it with certainty. We can, however, discover the mechanism by setting the issue in a wider context.

That context is provided by sociologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better. Published earlier this year this fascinating book summarises hundreds of research studies. It shows that amongst the rich countries those with less income inequality do better than the rest with respect to community life, mental health, drug abuse, physical health, life expectancy, obesity, education, teenage births, violence, prison population and social mobility. Wow!

Moreover this does not happen because they have fewer poor people – the benefits apply at all income levels.

They also show that inequality is the main CAUSE of this litany of problems – not merely a correlate. This is shown by looking at the persistence of these relationships over decades, the fact that they apply both between countries and between US states and the lack of any plausible mechanism whereby, for instance, murder rates could increase income inequality and the lack of

Perhaps the most interesting element from our point of view is the mechanism they propose whereby inequality creates such problems.

The authors use well-established medical and psychological research to show that low social status is damaging to people’s physical and mental health and to performance on tests of skill. (This is not a uniquely human phenomenon as it’s also been shown in monkeys.) This explains the bad effects on poor and low-status people directly. There are also indirect effects as teenagers from poor areas respond to their sense of inferior status by anxiety about their looks and status, drug use, excessive food consumption, gang membership and demands for ‘respect’. Anorexia, obesity, early pregnancy and violence follow fairly directly.

Religion, of course, provides an alternative response. Teachings about God’s universal love may make low economic status more bearable whilst the support of a believing community helps both psychologically and in practical ways.

High levels of inequality make matters worse by giving almost everyone the sense of having lower income and status than the fat-cat bosses, sportsmen and ‘celebrities’ whose doings fill our papers and screens. Thus in highly unequal societies the bad effects apply to almost everyone – just what the sociological research shows.

In such societies religion is attractive to people at all levels of society as all are exposed to status anxiety. (But the attraction is obviously greater where the anxiety is greater.)

The evidence from The Spirit Level thus suggests strongly that religious observance, like the litany of problems listed above, is driven primarily by inequality.

There is also some evidence for religion as a cause. The US, for instance, scores even worse on several indicators than its inequality would suggest. It is also more religious. Religious beliefs may cause people to despair of attempts to improve society or even to favour policies, such as abstinence-only sex education, that make things worse. It can hardly be coincidence that religious influence on politics, belief in the imminent arrival of the Messiah and abstinence-only sex education are so strong in the USA.

Humanists4Science

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About Humanists4Science (Hum4Sci)

Humanists4Science (H4S) Mission "To promote, within the humanist community, the application of the scientific method to issues of concern to broader society."

H4S Vision "A world in which important decisions are made by applying the scientific method to evidence rather than according to superstition."

H4S isfor humanists with an active interest in science.We believe that science is a fundamental part of humanism but also that it should be directed to humane and ethical ends. Science is, in our view, more a method than a body of facts.

H4S take a naturalistic view and believe, like 62% of the UK population, that science, the scientific method & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe.

Since 2008 H4S members have discussed many Humanist-Science topics in our Yahoo Group.

Jim Al-Khalili (BHA President)

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili - 11TH BHA President - On Scientific Method

'I have a rational unshakeable conviction that our universe is understandable, that mysteries are only mysteries because we have yet to figure out, the almost always logical answers. For me there is simply no room, no need, for a supernatural divine being to fill in the gaps in our understanding. We’ll get there, we’ll fill in those gaps with objective scientific truths: [with] answers that aren't subjective, because of cultural or historical whims or personal biases, but because of empirically testable and reproducible truths. We may not get the full picture, we may never get the full picture, but science allows us to get ever closer.’ Jim Al-Khalili, BHA AGM 2013

"A lot of people say science is just one way of looking at the world, at reality, and poets and musicians and, of course, people of faith, have said there are other ways. I don't buy that. For me there is an objective reality that is there and real. For a theoretical physicist who's trained in thinking about quantum mechanics, which involves the idea that by observing something you alter its nature, you have to have some sort of working definitions of reality"Jim Al-Khalili in New Humanist magazine Mar Apr 2013

Lord Taverne

Dick Taverne

Lord Taverne

Science depends on reason and regard for evidence. For me, the scientific approach lies at the heart of humanism as well as atheism. We all accept that science has made us healthier and wealthier. What has been seldom acknowledged or realised is that since the Enlightenment, which it helped to bring about, science has played an essential part in making us more civilised.

Science is the enemy of autocracy because it replaces claims to truth based on authority with those based on evidence and because it depends on the criticism of established ideas. Scientific knowledge is the enemy of dogma and ideologies and makes us more tolerant because it is tentative and provisional and does not deal in certainties. It is the most effective way of learning about the physical world and therefore erodes superstition, ignorance and prejudice, which have been causes of the denial of human rights throughout history. Science is also the enemy of narrow nationalism and tribalism and, like the arts, is one of the activities in this world that is not motivated by greed.

What can compare, for example, with the recent achievement of the Large Hadron Collider, a venture of collaboration by 10,000 scientists and engineers from 113 countries, free from bureaucratic and political interference? Those people put aside all national, political, religious and cultural differences in pursuit of truth and for the one purpose of exploring and understanding the natural world.

Without the contribution of science, which is, in my view, the rock on which atheism and humanism are built, we would be less inclined to be critical, tolerant and understanding and more prone to prejudice, bigotry and tribalism. We would be a less civilised society.

David Papineau on Materialism

'Our world is a fully material world. We don’t need to go outside Physics to understand the constitution of the Universe. Anything non-material would be epiphenomena and could never have any effect on the material world.' David Papineau (video) on Materialism

Richard Dawkins (BHA Vice-President) on Scientific Method

'Scientific method is a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.' (Photo: Chris Street, 2006)

Peter Atkins (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The scientific method is the only reliable method of achieving knowledge. It displaces ignorance without destroying wonder.'

'Science can deal with all the serious questions that have troubled mankind for millennia' Peter Atkins

'My own faith, my scientific faith, is that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and elucidate." Peter Atkins

Stephen Fry (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Reason is almost akin to superstition, ... reason must be tested, testing is the very basis of science.'

Matt Ridley (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries. Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it.'

Stephen Law (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Empirical science is possibly the only tool ... for understanding the world around us'.

Lewis Wolpert (BHA Vice President) on Scientific Method

'Science is the best way to understand the world, for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology – from medicine to industry.'

Harry Kroto (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The methods of science are manifestly effective, having made massive humanitarian contributions to society. It is this very effectiveness which the purveyors of mystical philosophies attack, because they recognise in it the chief threat to the belief-based source of their power and financial reward.'